**1. Introduction**

Cold fusion (widely referred to as low energy nuclear reactions LENR) presents major opportunities to enhance the public interest as a potential new source of cheap and clean energy. Although LENR was rejected by mainstream science within a year or so of its announcement

© 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2018 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

in March 1989, the phenomenon has continued to be extensively researched. LENR's improved prospects in recent years have resulted in a need for updates in LENR policies. Policymaking opportunities are emerging in three main areas—supporting LENR to realize its potential benefits, planning proactively to deal with its anticipated adverse secondary impacts, and integrating the updates in a comprehensive policy program. The objectives of this paper are to:

the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has conducted research at both the Glenn and Langley research centers [3, 4]. Elements of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) have also continued research and related interests. The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) assessed "with high confidence that if LENR can produce nuclear-origin energy at room temperatures, this disruptive technology could revolutionize energy production and storage, since nuclear reactions release millions of times more energy per unit mass then do

Integrated Policymaking for Realizing Benefits and Mitigating Secondary Impacts of Cold Fusion

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Several components of the U.S. Navy have also had active LENR research efforts. The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), for example, worked on LENR beginning when the field started in 1989. Other Navy organizations have also pursued LENR research and related activities, including the U.S. Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR), U.S. Naval Air Weapons Station (China Lake), and the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School.

An industrial association (LENRIA, for LENR Industrial Association) was formed in about 2013 to promote LENR development. LENRIA seeks to "advocate for both scientific study and, especially, commercial advancement of the field" [6]. It envisions a LENR ecosystem consisting of more than 30 R&D concerns, government entities, corporations, private labs, and publications and websites. LENRIA is sponsoring ICCF-21 in June 2018. In early 2017, The Anthropocene Institute published a report that included a list of almost 100 LENR-related entities (another "LENR Ecosystem") in five categories [7]: Makers (37); R&D Organizations (41); Investment Funds (7); Commercial Equipment Suppliers (5); and

The substantial research in LENR has resulted in a large accumulation of evidence for its reality. One indicator of this evidence is a website dedicated to collecting LENR publications (LENR-CANR.org), which has a bibliography of more than 3800 journal papers and related items. As of March 2018, about 4.6 million visits had been made and more than 4.2 million

Storms [9] has documented 380 papers reporting LENR just up to about 2007 as indicated by four signatures—anomalous heat (184 reports), tritium (61), transmutation (80), and radiation (55). Many more reports have been prepared in the subsequent years. Storms and Grimshaw [10] examined the evidence for LENR in relation to published criteria for distinguishing science from pseudoscience by Langmuir [11], Sagan [12], and Shermer [13]. Twenty-seven criteria were compiled, and LENR was examined in relation to each criterion. It was found that the criteria were satisfied, and it was concluded that LENR research is science and not

Significant progress has also been made in developing an explanation of LENR. Many hypotheses have been advanced, but much remains to be done to converge on a full explanation. Two well-known examples are the hypotheses advanced by Peter Hagelstein of MIT and Edmund

(sic) any known chemical fuel" [5].

**2.2. Large and growing body of evidence**

**2.3. Advances in theory development**

Storms, who is retired from Los Alamos National Laboratory.

papers had been downloaded [8] from the website.

Non-Profits (6).

pseudoscience.


The world is in desperate need of new sources of clean and inexpensive energy. If this were not the case, cold fusion would perhaps be just a curiosity in the history of science.
